Old Things

M suggested I go to the 'Museum of Small Things'. 'Museum der Dinge' means 'Museum of Things' and yes most of them are small. The Werkbundarchiv (Work Federation Archive) is incorporated into this collection. Founded in 1907 in Munich, it was a German association of artists, architects, designers, and industrialists. The organisation was support by the state and it's purpose was to integrate traditional german craft with industrial mass-production techniques, in an effort to put German design and production on the map. Werkbund was closed by the Nazi party but was re-established after the war.

Incorporated into the eclectic hoard of mass produced objects from the past 100 years, was a contemporary art exhibition. One of the works, was a series of small circular speakers placed in a few of the glass cabinets, each one sounding out a different audio track. Peels of laughter came from the cabinet of strange electrical devices which appeared to be for diagnosis and self healing.

I met A in a bar near the Volksbühne. I love that place. The last time I was in it, it was to go to the actor's canteen with S. We got shouted at by the small pointy featured man in the booth at the actors' entrance. After a spot of drinking and thespian watching we tried to sneak out of an alternative exit to avoid pointy man. Feeling like intrepid adventurers we traveled through door after door and up and down staircases through the empty wing, only to arrive back were we began. Pointy man said nothing to us when we left.

This time there was a youth theatre group rehearsing a mock nativity play in the small neat glass pavillion to the right of Volksbühne. Girls in tutus rolled around in hay with boys wearing top hats to the sound of a show tune played by a costumed girl on electronic keyboard.

I walked back to the studio and saw that the front door of the building at the corner of the street was ajar. There was the sound of experimental jazz piano. A man wearing a hat came to the door an invited me in. The room was a mixture between a work space, a living room and a store room. He was about sixty and so was his friend, a long red haired skinny rocker wearing leather trousers and a studded wrist band. There was a pretty woman with dreadlocks who looked like she was in her twenties. They offered me a seat and a cigarette. After the woman complained about speaking english the skinny one apologised for his, saying he was from the GDR and he was forced to learn Russian.

"German Aboriginals", she said.
She was drunk and I wondered why she was drunk with these two men. Hat man asked me if I was a tourist. I told him I was an artist.
"Berlin is very 20th century, it's absolutely defined and swamped by it.
Though I suppose there are not many European cities that are very 21st century...", I said.
"That is bullshit", she laughed to the hat man.

The rocker pulled down his trousers and I expertly averted my eyes so have no idea if he flashed his cock or not. I picked up a digital print of a black and white photograph of a woman and put it into my bag. On my way out he handed me a flyer. It was a photocopy of a article about his photographic work. Peter Woelek was a chronicler of GDR life. The majority of his published photographs were taken in Leipzig in the 70's.